Lord Nevinstoke revels in acting the young wastrel, until his father is killed in a drunken duel. Never one to do anything halfway, Nev throws off his wild ways to shoulder a mountain of responsibility—and debt—vowing to marry a rich girl and act the respectable lord of the manor. Manufacturing heiress Penelope Brown seems the perfect choice for a wife. She’s pretty, proper, and looking for a husband.

Determined to rise above her common birth, Penelope prides herself on her impeccable behavior and good sense. Grand Passion? Vulgar and melodramatic. Yes, agreeing to marry Nev was a rare moment of impulse, yet she’s sure they can build a good marriage based on companionship and mutual esteem.

But when they arrive at the manor, they’re overwhelmed with half-starved tenants, a menacing neighbor, and the family propensity for scandal. As the situation deteriorates, the newlyweds have nowhere to turn but to each other. To Penelope’s surprise, she begins to fervently hope that her first taste of Grand Passion in her husband’s arms won’t be her last.

The book has been out of print since Dorchester’s tailspin, and I’m very excited that it will be available again. To celebrate, I’m giving away 5 PENNY e-books and a super awesome gift basket (not literally. There is no actual basket)!

The gift basket includes:

1. A copy of the e-book in the format of your choice.

2. A signed promotional postcard.

3. Two In for a Penny bookmarks.

4. A real Regency penny! Dated 1806, this penny has clearly been extensively handled. ANYONE could have touched this penny. (Well, anyone living in England in the relevant timeframe.)

5. 4 grass-scented votive candles from Kittredge Candles. These just came in the mail and they smell amazing! The smell of summer in the country is a huge part of this book for me.

6. Dangerous Examples, Diane Dugaw’s collection of ballads about cross-dressing sailor and soldier maids. Includes “Mary Ambree” and “The Bristol Bridegroom,” both mentioned in Penny, and I’m sure Penelope knew many of these.

7. Dr. Arne at Vauxhall Gardens, featuring singers Emma Kirkby and Richard Morton backed by the Parley of Instruments. Who knows, one of these very songs could have been in the background when Nev saw Penelope at Vauxhall in chapter one! This CD is used but it plays perfectly.

9. Hogarth on High Life: The Marriage à la Mode Series. The product description from Amazon: “For the first time in more than 35 years, this edition of the Commentaries on Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode series brings one of the most entertaining and perceptive art texts of the 18th century back in print. Lichtenberg, a genial Anglophile, physicist, and colleague of Goethe, brought all the scabrous and mordant detail of Hogarth’s masterpieces to life. The brilliant translation by Arthur Wensinger is accompanied by an introduction and thorough notes, and by two other important early texts: Rouquet’s commentaries, which were authorized by Hogarth, and a hudibrastic verse explanation published in 1746. The very full illustration includes the Riephenhausen engravings from which Lichtenberg worked, Hogarth’s own engravings, and extensive details.” How cool is that? If you’ve read the book, you know why it’s relevant.

Here are 9 ways you can enter to win (N.B.: all require leaving a comment on this post):

1. Read a post from my original blog tour. Leave a comment on the post here.

The History Hoydens. I talk about class attitudes in Regency England and their effect on my nouveau-riche heroine.The Book Smugglers. My inspirations and influences, including but not limited to Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and my own family history. This one comes complete with old snapshots of bold fashion choices made by four generations of women in my family.The Season. A list of costume drama monster movies I’d like to see, such as vampire Crusaders, Cowboys vs. the Blob, and Lieutenant Hornblower and the Kraken.Romantically Speaking podcast. Danielle Monsch and I chat about research, romance, geek TV, the East Coast/West Coast divide, and of course the big one: Kirk vs. Picard.MuseTracks. This was a tough one to write. My mom died of cancer when I was partway through writing In for a Penny, and I talk about that here.The Chatelaines. In this Q&A with Gerri Russell, I talk about getting The Call from my editor, my very first attempts at Regency romance, and a bunch of other stuff.Book Binge. The hero and heroine of my book love Le Morte d’Arthur. In this post I talk about one of my favorite things about it: its lack of authorial judginess. I also talk about the good person/bad person divide in English literature generally, and there’s a great discussion in the comments about sympathetic villains and the difference between justice and revenge.

2. Post a photo of yourself with your copy of In for a Penny (original printing or Samhain) on twitter, facebook, instagram, tumblr, or similar. Leave a comment here linking me to the picture.

3. Write a recommendation or review of the book in the forum of your choice. This review should be HONEST, it does NOT have to be positive. Leave a comment here linking me to the rec/review.

4. Read a review of In for a Penny (either one of the ones linked here, or find one on your own). Leave a comment here telling me which review you picked and something that intrigued you about it.

1. To be entered you MUST leave a comment on THIS post.
2. The e-book giveaways are open internationally but due to postage costs, I will only ship the gift basket to the US or Canada.
3. Contest is open until June 15th.
4. You may enter up to 5 times! Leave each entry in a separate comment.
5. The winners will be chosen at random using random.org. No purchase is necessary to enter. Void where prohibited.
6. No spoilers in the comments please!

63 thoughts on “New contest: IN FOR A PENNY e-books, and a gift basket!”

Hi! Eloisa James’ review reminded me of a conversation between Penelope and Nev that I liked (and I’m REALLY paraphrasing): he tells her he can’t tolerate sitting at a desk going over books and he’s really not good at it, he’d rather be out talking to people, and she is taken aback and either says or thinks, “That’s JUST the thing I DON’T want to do.” It reminds me of the difference between my husband the video editor (who sits at a screen by himself all day) and me the child psychologist (who plays with 4 year olds and talks to people all day)! Except our roles are reversed. What a novel experience–your characters remind me of US! Loved the book.

Aw, that’s so awesome! And kind of a cool coincidence, I am a writer and my bff is going to school to be a therapist for kids. 🙂
About Nev and Penelope, I think that’s so common where we see something we admire/envy in a friend/significant other and don’t think about the flipside from their point of view. All too often I realize I’ve felt threatened by differences between me and someone else and seen them as an obstacle to closeness. When really it could be something cool to explore, or even a possible strength of a relationship because we complement each other. I absolutely love Loki and Thor in the Marvel movies for that reason–they just constantly tear each other down for being different, and yet you can SEE what an amazing team they could be…
Thank you!

I just read the History Hoydens post from 2010. Nowadays, most don’t think of class as in the blood, but class certainly exists, as we all know.
It’s just that nowadays, many seem to be convinced that they are rich because they deserve it.
God thought they were the right person to handle the wealth.
They/their parents worked hard all by themselves, without any help (except, you know, the hand-up from public schools and universities, or the modest fortune they inherited from their own parents, who sent them to expensive private schools. By driving over public roads. And their burning house put out by publicly-paid firefighters. But no, ALL BY THEMSELVES)
Those poor people are only poor because they make bad decisions. Or they are not worthy.
Can you tell I have some opinions? 😉

I couldn’t agree more! (The idea of who deserves to have money is actually a major theme in my next book, True Pretenses, because my heroine is the daughter of the Tory patron of Lively St. Lemeston and the hero is a con artist who grew up in the London slums.) Have you watched that speech by Elizabeth Warren?

Your MuseTracks post reminded me of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. The heroine writes tons of popular fanfiction while at college and avoids her “real” writing class. Anyway, the fanfiction world was new to me. I’m still not sure I would enjoy (or have the time to wade through) unedited work to find the gems, but I did really enjoy In For a Penny when it first came out. I just downloaded your second book from the library and am happy to know you have published a third. Best wishes.

Thanks! Did you like Fangirl? Should I give it a try?
Finding the good stuff in with the trash is about as difficult in fanfiction as it is in published fiction, in my experience–which is to say, sometimes easy, sometimes not. 🙂 But there’s really no reason to read it unless you find yourself longing to read more in a particular world or about particular characters. My first attempt at writing a novel-length story was Ivanhoe fanfiction, when I was about 10, so clearly it’s in the blood.
I’m so glad you liked In for a Penny! Good luck in the drawing.

8. Tell me about your favorite Star Trek episode and why it’s your favorite. 100 words minimum. Screencaps encouraged but not required.
Ooh, this is a good one. Incredibly difficult to choose, but I’m going to go with my favorite from TOS: The City on the Edge of Forever. I’m a sucker for any plot device that gets our fine crew traveling through time and the eerie planet of the Guardian makes for a great place for the adventure to begin.
For all that Trek had flirted with sadness, ‘City’ always felt like the beginning of the show’s willingness to go a bit darker. Edith Keeler is an unquestionably good person. We know that the good guys are supposed to win, save the day, survive (with the exception of redshirts, obviously), but Edith must die or the past we know would be irreparably harmed. Kirk’s bleakly spoken, “Let’s get the hell out of here,” at the close of the episode speaks to his profound discomfort with his choice, despite reassurances that it was ‘the right thing to do.’

I LOVE “City on the Edge of Forever”–although while I love the sad storyline, I always remember most the lighter elements: Kirk and Spock being cute roommates and wearing flannel and making computers out of old-timey hardware. Also, I love Joan Collins a LOT.

Aw, the quiet domesticity of earthbound Kirk and Spock is always dear to my heart 🙂 And Joan Collins is a treasure. I have fond memories of my grandmother playing ‘Dynasty’ on old Betamax tapes to distract us so she could go outside for a cigarette. That’s possibly the most old-timey sentence I’ve ever written, particularly given that couldn’t have occurred any earlier than ’95.

5. Look at the dream casting I did for Penny and tell me why you agree or disagree with one of my choices. Who would you suggest instead?
I adore your fancast of Tiffani Amber Thiessen and and Tim DeKay as the Browns. If anyone could pull off Mrs. Brown’s Cockney accent and appallingly purple satin it would be Tiffani, and if anyone’s going to be the couple who age appallingly well it would have to be those two.

I read your blog tour post over at The Book Smugglers–not sure how I missed it the first time around, but I’m glad to have seen it now–and agree wholeheartedly with your feelings on Sense & Sensibility. I’ve often tried to explain my discomfort with the novel and come up short. I still enjoy reading it, but something always rubbed me the wrong way. You nailed it when you said ‘I don’t want to choose between being a girl worthy of respect and being a girl who says out loud how she feels.’ I like to think I’m a decent mix of Elinor and Marianne, and the idea that I would have to choose is ridiculous.
PS-The bright, multigenerational busy pattern pictures were wonderful!

Yes! It took me a really long time to figure out what it was about Marianne that made her, in Jane Austen’s eyes, not just embarrassing or silly but morally objectionable and in need of punishment, and in the end, it’s her ENTHUSIASM. “Excessive” enthusiasm being a self-involved, selfish, vulgar trait in the Regency lexicon, one that prevents you from being properly elegant and socialized and never ever making anyone else uncomfortable. As if never embarrassing anyone (or making them feel awkward or intruding yourself on their notice when they’d rather not pay attention to you or making it obvious that you in fact are a human being with thoughts and feelings) were in fact the be all and end all of life! There’s a particularly scathing passage in S&S that always makes me FURIOUS:
“It was only necessary to mention any favourite amusement to engage her to talk. She could not be silent when such points were introduced, and she had neither shyness nor reserve in their discussion. [She and Willoughby] speedily discovered that their enjoyment of dancing and music was mutual, and that it arose from a general conformity of judgment in all that related to either. Encouraged by this to a further examination of his opinions, she proceeded to question him on the subject of books: her favourite authors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous a delight, that any young man of five-and-twenty must have been insensible indeed, not to become an immediate convert to the excellence of such works, however disregarded before. Their taste was strikingly alike. The same books, the same passages were idolised by each; or if any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be displayed.”
Like GOD FORBID A GIRL SHOULD REALLY REALLY LIKE A BOOK.
Like you, I still enjoy reading it very much, but me and Jane Austen, like me and Georgette Heyer, have a sort of Dostoevskian love/hate relationship.
I’m glad you liked the photos!

It reminds me of ‘The Problem of Susan.’ Susan Pevensie is left out of the family trip to Aslan’s country at the close of The Last Battle. Lewis literally leaves her the sole survivor of her family’s horrific train crash. In one of his letters he stated: The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. This was a girl who grew into the admired, capable leader of a nation and Lewis arbitrarily fridged her for growing up. JK Rowling mused: There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

Yes, Susan makes me very angry. (Although, it’s also kind of messed up that your “happy ending” is that your whole family dies in a train crash! Woooo!) Have you read the Neil Gaiman short story called “The Problem of Susan”? I don’t honestly remember it that well but I loved it when I read it, and there’s a bit about her having to identify her family’s bodies after the accident that is just incredible. I’ve heard that CS Lewis did that because the young woman he based Susan on left the church, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Yeah, I really enjoyed his first short fiction collection…was that Smoke and Mirrors? But that was at the height of my Gaiman love. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I read it now. Like Joss Whedon, he’s an author I loved at first but as I began to consume more and more of his work, I started to notice some annoying patterns in his storytelling.

4. Read a review of In for a Penny (either one of the ones linked here, or find one on your own). Leave a comment here telling me which review you picked and something that intrigued you about it.
I read Natalie Luhr’s review (I’m a fairly frequent Radish visitor). She describes the book’s cast of characters with such profound affection and is particularly impressed with the cast of secondary characters. One of my frequent complaints in any story is a weak supporting cast and the promise of a wide selection of fully rounded characters is incredibly appealing.

Yay!! Natalie is super-awesome, isn’t she? I also really love secondary characters–I don’t need them to have tons of screentime/pagetime necessarily, but I DO really need them to feel like complete people with their own shit going on. If they quite clearly only exist to serve the protagonist’s narrative needs, it drives me crazy–or worse, if you are intended to judge their worth as PEOPLE based ENTIRELY on how much they like the protagonist, or if “being an appealing character” and “liking/agreeing with the protagonist” correlate 100%.

6. Read the first chapter of In for a Penny and tell me your favorite moment in it.
I really enjoyed the entire thing, but one of my favorite moments came at this exchange:
‘”Would you like to step out on the terrace?” he asked hopefully.
She laughed outright. “I hope I’m not such a green girl as that. But I will allow you to select some hors d’oeuvres for me.”
“A task! My lady has set me a task! But first I beg a token of your favor.”
“I’m afraid my red sleeve embroidered with great pearls is pinned to my other evening gown, my lord,” she said with ironic courtesy.
His eyes lit up. “You like Malory!”
She flushed, as if it were something to be ashamed of. “I’ve always been fond of the Morte d’Arthur. I hope my taste in modern literature is rather more elevated.”‘
The passage sets Penny and Nev up for familiar, intelligent banter right at the outset. Penny allows Nev to break some of the regulations that convention dictates while firmly establishing boundaries of behavior. She’s not offended by his forward speaking and he doesn’t press the matter further than would be appropriate for a first meeting. Their chemistry is obvious without being over the top and the entire interaction is thoroughly charming.

I read the book smuggler’s blog post. I’ve not read any of the Heyer books, and I definitely won’t read “A Civil Contract” because I would hate that ending. “In for a Penny” was a story I really enjoyed and a keeper worth re-reading. I didn’t feel the same way about S&S, but I understand what you’re saying. The family pictures were fun to see. Interesting fashion sense!

Heyer is a bit of a minefield, honestly. I really love a bunch of her books, but even my favorites have major flaws that might be dealbreakers for some readers. (For example, I think “Grand Sophy” is probably my favorite and the one I’ve had the most success loaning to friends, the heroine is AWESOME and the banter is out of this world, but there is definitely a viciously anti-Semitic scene that sort of pops out of nowhere halfway through.) I’m so glad you liked In for a Penny!
I have in my closet a truly incredible housecoat in orange and black with weird squiggles all over it that was my grandmother’s. I never wear it, yet I can’t quite bear to get rid of it….

Character interviews: These were fun. My favorite response was from Penelope on whether she’s met a famous person (“…Met a famous person? One of my school friends offered to introduce me to Lord Wellington once at a ball, but I’d have had nothing to say to him that he hasn’t heard a thousand times all over England, so I declined.”) This is just the sort of practical, reasoned response one would expect from Penelope.
I also enjoyed many of Nev’s responses, esp. about Louisa’s nursemaid.

Thank you! Oh, Penelope. She is so RELENTLESSLY reasonable. I find it very adorable.
I had so much fun writing Nev’s, but oh dear, sometimes I worry about that nursemaid! She was probably fine, right? ::wibbles::

Dream casting: you have a lot of great ideas, of course, since the characters were born in your head! At the risk of being laughed off the blog, I tend to picture Rob Pattinson as Nev. If you’ve ever seen his interviews, he does come across as funny and even a bit goofy. He’s probably too tall, based on your character interviews.

Aw! There are no wrong answers in the dreamcasting game. Now that I’m thinking about it, Kristen Stewart would make a great Penelope, too. She has a gift for looking intensely self-contained that would be perfect.

4. I actually got here because I follow Kaetrin’s Musings blog, and she re-posted her original review to celebrate the re-release of In for a Penny.
Kaetrin often includes short quotes in her reviews, and in this case, the first paragraph she chose–which she credits with making her sure, from the start, that she would enjoy the novel–makes me itch to read it myself. (She’s a good book pimp.) “oh, hell, he tried not to meet anyone’s eye.” *chuckle*

I have been a regular reader of The Book Binge for a good while now, so I’m quite surprised I don’t remember reading your guest post there when it came up. Mind you, they do say memory is the second thing to go…
I don’t think I can answer your original question (“Do you like stories where evil is punished?”) without some qualification.
How evil is evil? Are we talking almost-cartoon-like evil, where there is never a sliver of a doubt about how villainous the villain is, never any question about justice being served by punishing him/her for their evil deeds? If that’s the case, then yeah, I prefer stories where evil is punished.
But you raise a great point about the dangers of being too sure of what good and evil are–and how often “evil” can mean “not quite good enough.” As you say, the Cinderella standard is pretty darned high. I don’t think very many people would measure up, and I for sure know *I* don’t, so to be considered evil–and therefore end up being punished–simply for not reaching those lofty heights of selflessness and one-dimensional goodness…well, it does seem like overkill, no?
A dozen or so years ago, there was a lively debate in several online venues I frequented, about the character of Mary Lou Starret neé Morrison, from Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series. There were people who absolutely hated her and fervently wanted for Ms Brockmann to kill her off.
Many, if not most, of those same readers could never understand why Ms Brockmann would instead make Mary Lou into a major secondary character in Gone Too Far, Sam and Alyssa’s book–in their opinion, because she was an alcoholic, because she was an ignorance/lack of contact/never-question-these-truths racist, because she tricked/manipulated Sam into getting her pregnant, because she was not likeable…she was evil and did not, period, deserve to have a romance–let alone a happy ending!–of her own.
And I never understood that. Yes, Mary Lou started as a very unlikely character–also, almost a child, all of 19/20 when she first shows up on the page–but that doesn’t make a person evil. Even her getting pregnant on purpose, with the full intention of guilting Sam into marrying her doesn’t make her eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. It makes her immature, deluded and human.
In real life? There are plenty of unwed teenagers who discover just how unrealistic is to expect a man to marry you just because he got you pregnant, even if you can absolutely prove he’s the father.
These girls are not evil either, and they do have to live with the very real, life-long consequences of their choices and decisions. Some of them compound their problems by continuing to make rather stupid choices, and some grow up and make a better life for themselves/become better people.
Would anyone truly want them dead just because they are stupid/selfish/ignorant/childish/young?

I love that example! Yes, the vicious hate that often gets focused on female characters (very often the hero’s primary love interest or, if most viewers like/identify with the primary love interest, his ex-girlfriend) saddens me on the regular. What is extra sad is that I remember doing the same thing myself. I HATED Lana on Smallville and wanted her to get crushed by a meteor, for YEARS. Yes, she was a bit one-note and it was the least charming I’ve ever seen Kristen Kreuk be and the writers were sexist, but there were plenty of other badly written characters on the show who I hated much less. But I saw her as the feminine ideal held up by the writers (which she was) and I wanted to crush her for it. It took me a long time to realize that setting up competitions for what is the “right” kind of girl to be in order to “deserve” masculine attention is still just buying into the same stupid sexist game, no matter what kind of girl you are holding up as the ideal. I used to love stories where the beautiful cheerleader (or similar) was passed over for the nerd, but now I try never to write them.

6. Oh so many things to like here!
I’m inferring, though I may be completely wrong, that Amy is Nev’s mistress as the story starts. If I am wrong, what follows may not apply, but I like that Nev actually interacts with her as a person rather than simply a sex object. The way it comes across is that he likes her and enjoys her company, which is a very refreshing change from most historical romance mistresses (well, with exceptions such as Mary Balogh’s More Than a Mistress, but in those the reader knows the heroine is the eponymous mistress, so it’s not the same at all.)

You are completely right, Amy is Nev’s mistress. Thank you so much! I had a few reasons for doing that:
1. I was very, very tired of evil exes in Regencies and wanted to write a nice ex-mistress.
2. I wanted Nev to be a total sweetheart (not to mention a sekrit nerd who always falls for good actresses) and for his carousing to feel essentially innocent.
3. I wanted it to actually be a sacrifice when he has to go respectable and get married, and if he didn’t like his mistress, then it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice to break up with her, would it?
I’m glad you enjoyed the chapter. 🙂

4. Read a review of In for a Penny:
There were several reviews that I liked. My two favorites were:
Amanda, Just Can’t Know – I felt this review matched many of my own feelings about the book. Esp: “They’re both such kind people with such a honest connection . . .”
I also liked Kathe Robin, Romantic Times Book Reviews comment about the dialog being appropriate for the era, yet updated enough to be understood by the modern reader. I like to read historical romances and I feel that too few authors understand the importance of this delicate balance. You can’t have your characters sound like they’re members of Generation X – but if you are too accurate with historical dialog, it makes for a difficult read.
Also – I don’t think I can edit my comments, so I wanted to clarify something I said in my first post. I should have started a new paragraph when I discussed S&S. I mention that “In for a Penny” is worth re-reading, then I say that I don’t feel the same way about S&S – but I meant that I don’t feel the same way YOU did about S&S – NOT that it’s not worth re-reading. I’ve been cringing at that first post ever since I re-read it after posting it.

Thank you! For some reason this makes me want to ask if you’ve watched Ripper Street? There is something very self-consciously “historical” about the dialogue in a way that actually doesn’t always feel accurate but more like a weird caricature–and yet all the actors deliver the lines with such conviction and verve and naturalism that it somehow totally works to create the lush, intense, Victorian police thriller vibe they are going for.
And don’t worry, I knew what you meant about S&S. 🙂

8. Favorite Star Trek episode
If it’s ST:NG, it’s without a doubt Cause and Effect, in which the Enterprise finds itself playing a loop that ends, every time, in its destruction. I have always had a thing for the idea of changing your future by changing your present–rather than the idea of going back to your past to change your present. That one scares me, because I am who I am because of all that I have lived up to this point. I don’t want to be someone else.
And I always liked that, to finally break the loop, Data must choose Riker’s plan over his own.
If it’s ST:TOS, then it’s The Menagerie, where Spock forces his own court martial in order to return his former captain to the only place where he can be whole, and happy. That episode was filmed the year I was born, and it is quite dated in terms of special effects and social attitudes (oh my good dog, the sexism!), but it was the first episode I saw, many years later in reruns, where I actively wanted to know what would happen to Spock and why he would do what he appeared to be doing.

Thankfully my library has a copy of In For a Penny, so I was able to read it soon after I finished your most recent book. My favorite thing about the first chapter is their first meeting, Nev’s smooth manner and humor and the way Penny just takes it in stride (with her own humor and grace).

Huzzah for libraries! I love how you put it–it’s funny, I never really thought about this before, but I think most of my books are about characters discovering what they have in common, whereas Nev and Penny are so different…but they fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw. Thank you! <3